Sunday Parkways "Ciclovía" in Portland

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PORTLAND, Ore. - It's taken me way too long to post this great video by Clarence Eckerson, Jr. of Streetfilms.org. There so many bikey friends, from Aaron Tarfman and his transportation trike, Linda, Timo, and Coach Dan with the 411, and Jonathan Maus Channeling Gil Peñalosa and so many smiles from young and old.

Portland's first Sunday Parkways was a huge success with tens of thousands of Portlanders converging on the North Portland streets, parks and sidewalks. Don't be surprised if this kind of event, originally started in Bogotá, becomes a mainstay all over the world.

Here is the write up from Streetsblog:

Despite a very dreary and damp first half of the day, Portland's first Ciclovia-style street closure, Sunday Parkways, was a smashing success with countless thousands of city residents participating. It was like a giant community block party with walkers, bikers, joggers, bladers, families, and pets filling the 6 mile course.

There were plenty of fun activities in four northeast parks that were linked by the circuit, which was opened to bikes and pedestrian traffic only from 8 AM to 2 PM. For cities planning their own Ciclovias, here are some things I liked about Portland's event: knowledgeable volunteers, lots of fun chalk messages on the ground, easy to follow directions, lots of music & entertainment, and a huge number of bike stations for bike repair.

If you want more Sunday Parkways be sure to let people know.

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Hal Grades Your Bike Locking 5-years Later

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NEW YORK CITY, NY -
From the StreetFilms Blog and Clarence Eckerson, Jr.

Nearly five years ago, legendary bike mechanic Hal Ruzal and I walked the streets surrounding Bicycle Habitat and graded the bike locking ability of New Yorkers - producing many humorous and enlightening anecdotes. The resulting video aired frequently on bikeTV and at many festivals, and because of it - Hal is still frequently asked by complete strangers to judge their bike locking.

I always endeavored doing another, but as with most sequels you need a new wrinkle. This time we thought we’d give Hal some company and invited former Recycle a Bicycle mechanic Kerri Martin (and founder of The Bike Church in Asbury Park, NJ) to weigh in with her expertise. Once again, bikes on the streets of SoHo provide lots of fodder for laughs and lessons to learn.

We didn’t plan to but we walked the same loop and even used the same one-hour time frame. The results? The grades were a little better than five years ago. Sure, still some bad locking out there, but many more people are now sporting multiple locks and better strategies! Good news, maybe we made a difference after all…

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How to use a Bike Box

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NEW YORK CITY, NY - More bike boxes are coming to Portland. Former prize fighter, Clarence Eckerson, of Streetfilms shows us how to use 'em.

From Streetfilms Blog

The NYC DOT has been quietly rolling out dozens of bike boxes all over Gotham. It’s really quite remarkable. But since the majority of riders seem not to know what they are or how to use them just yet, StreetFilms thought this would be a fun way to educate cyclists to love and cherish the Bike Box.

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New York City Recreated in Black Rock City

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Black Rock City, Nev. - Astor Place got rebuilt at Burning Man but what if spirit of Burning Man could be rebuilt in New York City?

Streetfilms takes up the important and harrowing task of exploring the subject. Thanks for doing it, guys, but can I come next time?

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Clarence: The Traffic Calming Wizard

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New York, NY - Clarence Eckerson, Jr.has morphed into a traffic calming Wizard.

From the StreetFilms Vlog:

We went back to check in how things were progressing on the NYC DOT’s plans for the 9th Avenue physically separated bike lane. The pleasant surprises continue as lane improvements, ample signage, and cyclist-only bike signals have now appeared making the innovative project even safer. And although driver behavior continues to improve, there are a few problems to highlight.

If you enjoyed this, check out others in the series: Clarence: The Traffic Calming Sasquatch & Clarence: The Traffic Calming Maniac


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Trading Car Parking for Bike Racks

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BROOKLYN, NY - In a historic first for New York City, the Department of Transportation has replaced three car parking spaces in Williamsburg with bike racks to accommodate about 30 bicycles.

The on-street bike parking, which is right next to the Bedford Avenue stop on the L train, will greatly benefit the burgeoning bicycling mecca of Billyburg. As any visitor or person in the community knows, it is very hard to find a legal spot to lock up your bike there. Hopefully, we will see other places in NYC getting this same treatment.

For more on the history of the project, please see this entry at Streetsblog.

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Improve Your Intersection

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PORTLAND, OR - I'd like to think the reason Clarence Eckerson, Jr. came to town was to have me film him cavorting in a Bigfoot suit. The real reason he was here last week was to shoot this video this great Street Films video on Intersection Repair.

Intersection Repair is part of Village Building Convergence where hundreds of people come together to build diverse projects for the benefit of their communities and to take back their streets. The Sasquatch Video was just bonus.

This is an important and very well done film but at 10 minutes it runs a bit longer than most of our videos. Set aside a few minutes to watch and think about how your neighborhood could be improved by a community building project like this.

Three neighborhoods repair projects are highlighted in this video and the main task was to repaint the street. There is definitely a “Eugene” vibe (a good thing in my book) but each neighborhood had it’s own feel. As this concept takes off it will be interesting to see the different flavors particular neighborhoods bring.

The grid system combined with motor vechicles has a way of separating us as neighbors. Intersection repair seems like a great way to bring us back together.






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New Sasquatch Habitat in Oregon

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PORTLAND, OR - The elusive Sasquatch aka Bigfoot has finally been conclusively captured on video tape in the quiet neighborhood of Ladd's Addition.

Perhaps it is calm nature of the neighborhood streets, which were laid out in the late 1800's and designed to reduce the speed of passing carriages. Or, perhaps it's the additional traffic calming designs that make Bigfoot feel comfortable on a bicycle.

Regardless of the reason, this Sasquatch (named Clarence) is in love with his new home.

This video report was produced by Street Films Clarence Eckerson and yours truly. Streetfilms.org is a video blog that tackles the issues of the livable streets movement. In this tongue-in-check movie we take the concept of "Clarence: The Traffic Calming Maniac" one step further!

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